


Out of the Darkness

by methylviolet10b



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Battle of Maiwand, Other, Prompt Fic, Rationalism, Supernatural - Freeform, Superstition
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-24
Updated: 2018-07-24
Packaged: 2019-06-15 10:52:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15411330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/methylviolet10b/pseuds/methylviolet10b
Summary: Watson knows there's a perfectly rational explanation for everything.





	Out of the Darkness

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: References to the Battle of Maiwand. Period-typical attitudes. And absolutely no beta. This was written in a huge rush. You have been warned.  
> Author's Notes: Written for the following prompt: Werewolves. Watson knows that werewolves do not exist. Something forces him to re-evaluate that stance.

The supernatural need not apply, Holmes has said, and largely I agree with him. I am a man of science too, just as he is, if not so vocal about it.  
  
And yet I am a Scotsman born, raised on the tales of the Fair Folk and other fantastic creatures. I know well the power of superstition, and how easy it is to fall back on those old stories as explanation when faced with the inexplicable. Many times, too, I’ve seen Holmes explain those incidents, uncover the human agents behind the so-called supernatural happenings. Ghosts, vampires, hell-hounds; my friend has investigated them all, and found them all to be true cases of villainy, but not supernaturally caused.  
  
I am sure he would find a similarly rational explanation of Private Morse and Stripe, should I ever mention them to him. Not that I ever will.  
  
*****  
  
“Please, sir, if you’ll only just come take a look at him…”  
  
I sighed inwardly. It had been a long day already, with the camp getting ready to go out on the march. Rumours flew around the regiment that we would soon be ordered into battle. I knew that I should say no, get what rest I could. But Private Morse was a good Glaswegian lad, and I had a well-known soft spot for dogs. “Very well, but if he isn’t where you left him, there’s not much I can do.”  
  
I followed the young man out of the medical tent and across the camp. We passed the last tents, and I was beginning to wonder if Morse meant to march straight out onto the plain when he crouched down near a scant bit of scrub and rock. “He’s here, sir.”  
  
A low growl and soft whine accompanied his words. Carefully I eased up next to him. “That’s not one of the regular camp dogs,” I remarked, surprised. The thin brown mongrel looked more like an Afghani tribesman’s dog than anything a British regiment might have brought from home.  
  
“Oh, I’ve seen him about many a time. And see? He’s got some bit of rope or wire or sommat wrapped around that hind leg, and it’s cutting into him something cruel.”  
  
Indeed, I could see that. It was a relatively fresh injury; the flesh was torn and swollen, but there were no visible signs of infection. “He might not let me do anything about it,” I cautioned. “He may be quite wild.”  
  
The dog looked at me, and as if he’d understood my words, he started licking Morse’s hands with every sign of friendliness. Of course, knowing Morse, he’d probably coaxed a bit of ham from one of the cooks. “All right then, I’ll try. Do your best to keep him calm if you can.”  
  
The cord, or whatever it was, was strange: many strands intertwined, rough and slippery both, strong as steel, and thoroughly unpleasant to handle. My fingertips burned after just a few minutes of working on it. A snare for a rabbit or some other prey, perhaps? I knew little about what the local tribesmen used for snares, if anything, but I refused to believe they didn’t use something. Country folk are country folk the world over, and meat for the pot is always welcome. It was a job to try and get it loose, whatever it was. The dog shivered violently under my hand as I gradually worked it free, but offered no violence, not even when my movement of its leg made it yelp.  
  
At last I got the last bit loose. As soon as it lifted away, the dog sprang up too, leaping backwards and away as best as it could. It ran off into the darkness with surprising speed despite its limping gait.  
  
“I wish I’d had a chance to dress the injury,” I muttered. Infection was all too likely.  
  
“Oh, I expect he’ll be just fine now that he’s untangled,” Private Morse tried to reassure me. His eyes caught the fading rays of the Afghanistan sunset in such a way that the usual hazel looked bright green. “Thank you so much, sir. I’d best get rid of that, before it causes any more trouble.” He picked up the length of odd twine with his handkerchief and tucked it away in a pocket. I later saw him burn it, handkerchief and all, in one of the waste fires.  
  
*****  
  
They were fast friends from that day forward, Private Morse and that dog. He called him Stripe, joking that he’d earned them. His injuries healed remarkably quickly, and without any trouble, not even leaving a scar. Stripe went everywhere Morse did, but he’d have nothing to do with any of the other regiment dogs, or the regiment’s men, either. Several of the men tried to befriend him, those that liked dogs, but he steadfastly ignored them all. Nor would he have anything to do with the Afghani folk and their beasts; if anything, he was even more wary of them. I was the sole exception to this rule. Stripe seemed to regard me as someone to be polite to, and worthy of watching. He would occasionally shadow me on my duties. He even tried to follow me into the surgical tent once. And several times, in the evenings, I would look up from my reading, and see his eyes reflecting the light of the camp’s fires from where he lay watching me. They shone green most times, but occasionally yellow or red, as animal eyes will.  
  
Then came Maiwand.  
  
I’m sure Holmes would say it was a hallucination brought on by the horrors of that battle, and by shock and blood loss. I’m certain of it myself. But I remember hearing terrible howls that day, different from the screaming cries of the Ghazis. I remember seeing Private Morse’s face one last time as the light went, as his group was cut off from mine. Rage and fear distorted his face and jaw into something savage, almost unrecognizable, except for the snarling brown fury battling by his side.   
  
All that is easily explained by battle fear and echoes and war cries. Morse was lost that day, as so many were.  
  
But on that awful retreat, bleeding out on the back of an exhausted horse while Murray desperately tried to get it to move fast enough to escape the Ghazis swiftly overtaking us, something happened. Something scared that horse into bolting. Something caused the maddened hordes chasing us to falter, enabling our eventual escape. Something – or several somethings, for my mind persists in thinking there were two similar but distinctly different tones – made a hideous noise that occasionally haunts my nightmares to this day.  
  
And sometimes, when I am on the verge of waking from those nightmares, I imagine I see two pairs of blazing green eyes shining out of the darkness.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted July 23, 2018.


End file.
